Gobsmack

[Michael Quinion]

Phil Cleary wrote:

> Can anyone tell me more about the wonderful word "gobsmack"?

This is from my page at

  <http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gob1.htm>:

It's a fairly recent British slang term: the first recorded use is
only in the eighties, though verbal use must surely go back
further. The usual form is "gobsmacked", though "gobstruck" is also
found. It's a combination of "gob" (meaning mouth), and "smacked".
It means "utterly astonished, astounded". It's much stronger than
just being surprised; it's used for something that leaves you
speechless, or otherwise stops you dead in your tracks. It suggests
that something is as surprising as being suddenly hit in the face.

It comes from northern dialect, most probably popularised through
television programmes set in Liverpool, where it was common. It's
an obvious derivation of an existing term, since "gob", originally
from Scotland and the north of England, has been a dialect and
slang term for the mouth for four hundred years (often in insulting
phrases like "shut your gob!" to tell somebody to be quiet). It
possibly goes back to the Scottish Gaelic word meaning a beak or a
mouth, which has also bequeathed us the verb to "gob", meaning to
spit. Another form of the word is "gab", from which we get "gift of
the gab".


--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <TheEditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>